Big Something kicks off winter tour in Boston

Sunday

Feb 11, 2018 at 4:37 AMFeb 11, 2018 at 9:52 AM

Burlington, North Carolina's Big Something kicked off its winter tour with a sizzling one hour and 45 minute show at Brighton Music Hall in Boston Saturday night, and the sextet's groove-heavy melange of rock and funk and soul and jazz had about 250 fans swirling in ecstatic delight. Big Something is embarking on a lengthy […]

jaymiller

Burlington, North Carolina's Big Something kicked off its winter tour with a sizzling one hour and 45 minute show at Brighton Music Hall in Boston Saturday night, and the sextet's groove-heavy melange of rock and funk and soul and jazz had about 250 fans swirling in ecstatic delight.Big Something is embarking on a lengthy tour schedule, which, if we just consider the closely linked upcoming dates, will include 31 dates, running to the end of May. The band, which got its start in 2009, released its fourth studio album, “Tumbleweed” just about a year ago, and has built a burgeoning fan base through constant touring and high profile opening slots for jam band nation favorites like the Robert Randolph Family Band, and others.Saturday's set at Brighton Music Hall was a lively and tantalizing dose of the sextet's music, with most songs running close to ten minutes in length, and neatly traversing the boundaries between rock and funk and soul and fusion jazz, psychedelia and even Southern rock. But all of it was delectably dance-able and infectious, and it was the rare person indeed who could resist toe-tapping along to the beats.Saturday's 14 song set included half of the eight songs on “Tumbleweed, along with a couple of inspired covers. Big Something includes Nick McDaniels on vocals and guitar, Ben Vinograd on drums, Doug Marshall on bass, Josh Kagel on keyboards, Casey Cranford on saxophone and EWI (electronic wind instrument), and Jesse Hensley on lead guitar. The band writes its own music, with McDaniels and lyricist Paul A. Interdonato penning the lyrics.The show opened with the slowly building groove of “UFOs are Real,” from the last album, crafted on a mysterious, funky soul foundation which allowed the guitars and keyboards to soar into melodic and captivating directions. “Wildfire” began with the kind of precise guitar textures that evoked classic Allman Brothers, as McDaniels sang of a love that “we both thought was the real thing,” and the tune ultimately succeeded in being both an evocative Southern rocker and insistent beat-heavy dance rocker too.McDaniels played mandolin on “Amanda,” but the real core of the song centered on Cranford's use of the EWI, turning a song which initially reminded one of the New Riders of the Purple Sage-type country rockinto a heady sort of funk hybrid with his sax-meets-oboe-meets synthesizer astral tones. And yet in the midst of all that musical stew, McDaniels' vocal was still riveting as he sang lines like “goddamn I love you and I don't know why.”The night's first cover was a soaring funk take on Prince's “1999,” delivered at a brisk pace, and with the mind-blowing synth solo followed by a guitar duel that was both Prince-worthy and Allmans-esque.The next song was another startling amalgam, as “Waves” felt like dance-pop melded to arena rock, with the best dynamic aspects of each. How could you categorize “Nomad,” which rode a kind of reggae/ska beat, but pivoted into an extended jam that harkened back to the peak of the Marshall Tucker Band's jazzy country-rock?The title cut from the last album “Tumbleweed” segued into “Ride” with shimmering guitars melting into a torrid rock 'n' soul exploration, and then dual guitar leads funneling into a spacey guitar section of otherworldly mood music.It was probably necessary to pull everyone back to earth with a pulstaing cover of Peter Gabriel's “Sledgehammer,” with the tenor sax and assorted guitar special effects adding extra spice, before it drifted into the band's own “(Julia)”.For their encore Big Something did their own “Megalodon,” from 2014, a funky blast with vague reggae underpinnings, which featured the EWI's weirdly entrancing tones set against the funkiest synthesizer lines for another dazzling musical stew.Dayton, Ohio's “The Werks opened with their own 90-minute set, proving their own impressive chops with a passel of songs extended to ten minutes and beyond. There were times the quintet could've used some editing, but their set-closing cover of The Grateful Dead's “Shakedown Street” was as funky and inviting a 20-minute jam as any rockers have ever concocted. There were a few places where The Werks reminded us of Edgar Winter's rock/jazz/blues mix, and that's high praise.